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Recently I've been seeing Smith Leong post many cute "drawings" on his facebook status. Personally I think that humans who have the ability to create works of art just by moving a pencil/pen over some paper are really really talented. This is because I myself can't even draw a proper circle. [As you can see from the image below]

Looking at Smith's cute little drawings reminded me of a little collection that I had. I may not be good with pens and pencils, but I know I'm definitely good with my fingers. [Sexually suggestive pun intended] From having lightning fast fingers that help me outplay opponents in games, to being able to give relaxing shoulder and back massages to friends and family. My magic fingers have seldom failed me.

Remember long, long ago, in the southern province of China, a smartphone game called Draw Something was invented and took the world by storm. I, too, was one of the victims that spend countless hours on a game which you could easily cheat by just spelling the answers out on the drawing space.

Drawing on smartphones became a trend, and an obsession to some. I'm not sure when or why I one day decided to try drawing a very nice picture instead of stick men, but I somehow discovered that I had some sort of hidden talent: Being able to draw reasonably nice pictures on my iPhone with just my magic fingers. [No stylus required]

But don't ask me to draw something on my phone just out of randomness. I think I need inspiration to be able to create miracles like these again. I tried drawing something on a sketchbook app last night. Let's just say the results were light years apart.

Back in the early days of engineering, we did not have the expertise to harness the powers of hydraulics or electro-magnetism. All the lifts from that era were operated purely by gears and pulley systems. This meant that lifts moved slower and passengers had to spend longer waiting times inside these moving boxes. Soon enough, more and more passengers started to complain that the lifts were too slow.

Many companies frantically tried to design better pulley systems, get better grade gears and parts to try to make these lifts move faster, thinking that the problem lies with the mechanics of the lifts. However, some ingenious person decided to look at it from a totally different angle.

In the olden days, humans did not have smartphones, music players or tablets to keep us entertained while we were in the lifts. Therefore, your brain would naturally start to be aware of the waiting time it takes to get to your destination. And along with that, the potential of a life-threatening situation should something in these moving boxes fail.

The solution was simple. Give them something to do. And what was the thing that nobody would get sick of seeing even if they saw it for the 61982421st time? Themselves, of course. So companies started putting mirrors in the lifts to give these complain kings and queens something to do while they were in the lifts.

Once people started fixing their hair, adjusting their clothes and squeezing their pimples in the lifts, suddenly nobody complained that the lifts were slow any more. And yet, not a single thing had been done to improve the speeds of the lifts. The problem didn't lie in the lifts, but in the mentality of the passengers!

During the early days of space travel, the American space travel was one of the most documented activities. Humans wanted to know what the astronauts were doing in space, what they saw, how they felt etc etc. And of course, the best way to keep track of these details were to write them down!

However, there was a huge problem. Up in space, there is no gravity. This meant that all your ball-point and fountain pens could not work, as the ink would not flow downwards and onto the writing surface like how it does back on Earth.

Rumour has it that NASA spent millions of taxpayer dollars in Research and Development and they finally created a pen that could work in space.

So one day, a NASA representative was bragging about this achievement to his Russian counterpart, telling him the difficulties they went through to achieve this new-found technology. And when he finally turned around and asked the Russian how they kept documentations of their space trips, he simply replied: "Oh. We use pencil."

I just love reading stories about people using creative yet amazingly simple solutions to mind-fuck the brains of the traditional thinkers. And when you actually manage to do something like this, it feels like you successfully caught a Mew with a standard PokeBall. [Gamers will know]

However, when it doesn't go the way you planned, it feels like a Magikarp escaped from a Master Ball. Yes, it is possible. So are you willing to take that leap of faith?

Out of all the names you would give your children, why would you choose something like that? Unless you're out to make your child's life a living joke. In which case, I highly doubt you are mature enough to be even having your own kid.

Naming your child is one of the most, if not THE most important part of becoming a parent. The child's name will be something that would follow [or in this case, haunt] him for all his life, unless he decides to change it when he is officially old enough.

The English language itself already has a legion of weirdly named people, but what happens when you add the Chinese names into the mix? The result is a claypot of hilarious personal identifications that sound ok in Chinese but results in your child's English name being the butt of all jokes in primary and secondary school. Or vice versa.

During my army days, I meet this guy who's Chinese name was 号龙 [Hao Long]. It may sound ok in Chinese, but the English translation of his name was "How Long". And to make matters worse, his English surname was Kok... [True Story] I hope that the real reason behind it was that his parents were not English educated and not because they had a really bad sense of humour.

Obviously he has gotten used to having his friends joke about his name from a very young age, so every time when his name was called, he would reply without hesitation "Very Long Instructor!", which made it even funnier.

Ming Zi - Translates to "Name" in Chinese

Recently Mint Leong and myself have been thinking of funny names that we could give our future children / relative's children to make sure that they would hate us forever.

One of my relatives had named their 3 daughters with names ending with -na. And we all thought that the next child, their first son, would be named Banana. Fortunately [or unfortunately] they didn't go with the flow. Or else I would suspect he would be Mr Popular now with all the buzz about minions and bananas.

Leong translates to 梁 [Liang] in Chinese. I'm sure many of you can instantly come up with lots of crappy names to go with this surname, for example 梁体温 [Liang Ti Wen - Sounds similar to "Measuring Body Temperature" in Chinese] or 梁部道 [Liang Bu Dao - Sounds similar to "Unmeasurable" in Chinese]

And if I had a daughter, I would [if you wanted her to hate you for the rest of her life] name her "Faye". Nice name right? And her Chinese name would be 漂亮 [Piao Liang]. So that she will feel proud every time somebody calls her full name: Faye Chang Piao Liang [Sounds similar to "Extremely Pretty" in Chinese]

Another one [thanks for the reminder Babygirl] of our favourites would be to give our future child the Chinese name 命百 [Ming Bai] and have his English name as Suay [Singlish for unlucky]. This way, although he would be termed as the unluckiest child in the history of Singapore, every time someone calls his full name, he would be blessed with a hundred years of longevity! Long live Chang Ming Bai Suay! [Sounds similar to the Chinese proverb of wishing that someone has long and fruitful life]

Oh, and have you heard the one where a mum passed out while giving birth to her 2 unnamed twins, a boy and a girl? When she awoke, she frantically asked the nurse if anyone had helped to name her babies. The nurse calmly replied that her brother, who accompanied her to the hospital had already helped to name them.

Knowing that her brother was someone who would always make a joke out of things, she worriedly asked for the name of her daughter. "Denise" The nurse replied. [Phew, not bad for a girl's name actually].

Being with a loving partner is exciting, engaging and pretty much makes our lives more interesting everyday. However, it can sometimes also be confusing, stressful and demanding. And the main reason is because of the differences between the mindsets of the males and females of the human species.

The ladies are always keeping their-selves busy with family, friends, work and you. She remembers every single detail of every single "meaningful" moment spent with you. [That comprises of about 99% of the time you spent together] From which finger you were biting when you were waiting for her answer after asking her to be your girl, to the date you bought your first couple item together. [Date of purchase and date of actually wearing it out together is different, and you are expected to remember both of them!] Details details details.

The men on the other hand, pretty much only remember the major milestones: The yearly anniversaries, the Valentines Days, the first time you guys got kinky... Guys are more prone to remember the actual experiences instead of the time and place that it happened at. Even if you were to ask me now what were the dates of our Sydney trip, I can only say that it was somewhere in June. But ask me what we did there and I can tell you in full 64-bit colour pixelized detail.

But that is the problem. The female of the species is always fixated on the details. When was our first kiss? In 19 more days, how long have we been together? What colour was the dress I was wearing during your sister's boyfriend's cousin's pet hamster's funeral?

Frankly speaking, it doesn't matter to us! Because whether you were wearing green, yellow, brown, red or even nothing at all doesn't have any influence on the happenings of that event. The attention should have been on how the hamster's pitifully drowned in it's own drool while sleeping. What really matters is that the hamster is dead, and that we are sad.

Too many times guys have fallen victim to this gift natural phenomenon of being able to see the big picture. The girlfriends and wives get angry, and we end up having to go to extreme lengths just to be able to get kinky with them again appease their anger.

But not to worry, with this new age of technology comes a new legion of tools that we can use to prevent those nasty situations from happening. I call them "The Boyfriend Tools".

1. The Mobile Calendar - [the Calendar Icon on your mobile phone]
One of the most, if not the most boyfriend friendly tool that technology has granted us. Whether you are an iPhone junkie, a Galaxy warrior or even a Nokia hipster, almost every mobile phone today has a Calendar function.

Save all your important couple dates on it and you will never again have that embarrassing moment where you don't know the answer to the "Do you know what day is it today?" question. And always set the reminder to go off at least 1 week earlier so that you have ample time to get some preparation done.

2. The Anniversary Calculator -http://www.re-date.com/index.php
Having trouble remembering your 20000 hours anniversary? Don't fret, the Anniversary Calculator is here to save the day. Be it in minutes, hours, days or months, the Anniversary Calculator shows you all the important dates that most guys would normally not even deem to be a valid anniversary celebration.

3. The Bitch Period Calculator - http://www.periodcalculator.net/
Girls turn into evil creatures before and during their periods. Overly sensitive, emotional and downright bitchy. But lady red does have her silver lining. Because after it's over, well, let's just say that there willl be lots of good stuff coming your way.

So it always helps to know when are the days that you should be expecting to be walking on thin ice, and when are the days which you might be getting some awesome booty. That is, if your girl is on a regular period. For those of you who have partners that have irregular periods, well, the only other word of advice I can give is to know how to recognise the signs.

4. The Galaxy Tracker - http://www.spacedex.com/
Girls are suckers for once in a lifetime natural phenomenon, even though it might happen every year. If you are running out of romantic ideas on where to go or what to do, check out spacedex for a list of meteor showers, supermoons and solar and lunar eclipses. And if you're lucky [or unlucky] enough, you might even be the first to catch news of the end of the world.

5. Budget Dating - http://www.wikihow.com/Date-On-a-Budget
Want to bring her out on a date that won't burn a hole through your pocket? It seems that this is such a common question that it even appears on wikihow. Get some cool ideas on how to keep the passion high and the costs low. In fact, if your girl truly loves you, she will definitely prefer most of these as opposed to a fine-dining dinner at a fancy French restaurant. The key word here is Quality Time.

6. The Flower-dex - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_flowers
Yet another one from our good friends at wikipedia. Just like how you know the names, elements, evolutions and skills of all the 151 original Pokemon, each different flower and number of flowers has a different meaning when it comes to giving them as presents to girls.

I know many of us don't even know that Baby's Breath is a kind of flower. So here's some help when picking a flower for your girl. And no matter what you do, never, ever, ever pick Carnations or Chrysanthemums!!

But of course, all these are just tools. The best tools in the world would mean nothing in the hands of an amateur craftsman.The most important tool of all is still your heart. Love like you've never been hurt. And always know that yes, there are always better options out there for you, but there are also always better options out there for her. And yet she still chooses to stick with you.

Love is not about finding the perfect partner. It's about finding someone who you can perfect moments with.

In his typical Celebrity Chef fashion, Ramsay has accepted a challenge from some of Singapore's most renonwned Food Bloggers and Singtel, to learn and review [and even try to out-do] 3 of Singapore's most famous Hawker Food. Read more about it here:

But as my hipster habits would have it, the main topic of this post does not revolve around the current buzz in the community. However it's still something remotely related to the recent buzz - Gordon Ramsay.

My Babygirl has long been an avid anti-sharksfin soup supporter, and I have never really understood why... Until now.

While surfing facebook researching on current affairs at work, I chanced upon this youtube video of Gordon Ramsay trying sharks fin soup for the first time. My initial intention of watching the video was only just to find out what the Celebrity Chef thought of our Prized Chinese Dish. But in the end I walked away with much much more than just that review on the sharks fin soup.

Watch the video and you will understand what I'm talking about.

I used to be a major fan of sharks fin soup, and would gladly finish up any remaining portions that the rest of the diners on the table were too shy to take. But after watching this video and seeing how inhumanely the sharks are treated, I have vowed never to touch another bowl of sharks fin soup in my life.

After watching how the dish was prepared, I have confirmed my long-running suspicions that the great taste of the sharks fin soup actually comes from the SOUP BASE and not the FIN. And even that slight taste that you get from the fin itself comes from it being soaked in chicken essence for 5 freaking hours!

And all this just because of someone in ancient Chinese history telling someone else that eating sharks fin is a symbol of status and wealth. The thought probably came from the stigma that sharks are one of the apex predators of nature, and being able to be one up on them on the food chain means that you are the apex of the apex predator? Lame.

Well traditions don't mean anything when they are illogical and irrelevant in today's world. Saying that eating sharks fin shows one's status and wealth is just like saying seating in the president's office shows your status and power. So does that mean that our president and his counterparts are less respected when they are walking down the streets of their country and not seated in their comfortable office? What rubbish is this?

If the sharks were killed in a quick, humane way, I might still consider going back to what was once one of my favourite dishes. However, looking at the way they de-fin the shark is just painful to say the least. And what's worse, they throw it back into the ocean after cutting off one of the core survival tools of the animal. Maybe we should take those people who still believe that eating sharks fin shows their status and wealth, cut off their arms and legs, and throw them back onto the busy streets of their CBD distrinct during rush hour.

Head on down to http://www.sharktrust.org to learn more about how we can do our part to protect these beautiful and endangered species from going extinct in the most horriblest of ways. I'm sure you won't want your future grandchildren to only know about sharks through pictures and 3D holographic images right?